City of Nacogdoches residents vote to do away with club memberships for alcohol sales

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - Residents of legal drinking age in the City of Nacogdoches will no longer have to fill out a form with personal information to buy alcohol for the first time at restaurants and clubs now that the final results from Tuesday's election have been tallied.

The measure passed by a margin for 1,208 for and 184 against, according to Debra Gaston, the elections coordinator for Nacogdoches County. Of the early voters, 529 voted for the referendum to repeal the abovementioned alcohol-related ordinance. Seventy-seven voted against it.

"We had considerably more voters than we did in the last constitutional election two years ago," Gaston said. "It was a much larger election day turnout than we had expected."

Gaston said voters in the City of Nacogdoches voted to approve all nine amendments to the Texas Constitution, which mirrored the way the numbers are coming in at the state level.

Although Tuesday was a constitutional election, which usually brings out lower numbers of voters, Nacogdoches, businesses were hoping residents would show up at the polls to voice their opinion about a law that requires first-time alcohol buyers to fill out a form with personal information.

Along those lines, several Nacogdoches club owners provided shuttle service to get people to their respective polling places Tuesday.

East Texas News did some digging and spoke with businesses about the law that many call unnecessary.

"It really affects the ownership of each restaurant as well as every guest that comes in and wants to purchase alcoholic beverage," Cassandra Stokes, the general manager of Newk's, said in a previous East Texas News story.

The ordinance states that for a restaurant to sell alcohol, they must sell it under the idea of being a private club separate from the restaurant.

Opponents of the law say that it doesn't do anything good and only sends money to other cities.

The current law means that patrons have to hand over their IDs to be scanned into a database system, which then grants them a preliminary membership.

"They have no problem with showing me their license, but don't want me to take their license away," said John Yin, the owner of La Carreta in Nacogdoches. "They worry about us getting their personal information."

Voters in the Latexo Independent School District voted against a proposed $5.5 million bond in Tuesday's election.

According to a sample ballot, if the bond had passed, the money would have been used to renovate the district's existing buildings and purchase property for the construction of new classrooms, new science laboratories, and a new gymnasium. Don Elsom, the Latexo ISD superintendent said 111 people voted for the bond, and 156 voted against it.

Constitutional Amendments to be voted on:

PROPOSITION 1

"The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for an exemption from ad valorem taxation of all or part of the market value of the residence homestead of the surviving spouse of a member of the armed services of the United States who is killed in action."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 995,817 (86.98%) for - 149,027 (13.01%) against

PROPOSITION 2

"The constitutional amendment eliminating an obsolete requirement for a State Medical Education Board and a State Medical Education Fund, neither of which is operational."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 946,299 for (84.69%) - 171,056 (15.30%) against

PROPOSITION 3

"The constitutional amendment to authorize a political subdivision of this state to extend the number of days that aircraft parts that are exempt from ad valorem taxation due to their location in this state for a temporary period may be located in this state for

purposes of qualifying for the tax exemption."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 624,154 (57.73%) for - 456,986 (42.26%) against

PROPOSITION 4

"The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for an exemption from ad valorem taxation of part of the market value of the residence homestead of a partially disabled veteran or the surviving spouse of a partially disabled veteran if the residence homestead was donated to the disabled veteran by a charitable organization."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 961,590 (85.14%) for 167,831 (14.85%) against

PROPOSITION 5

"The constitutional amendment to authorize the making of a reverse mortgage loan for the purchase of homestead property and to amend lender disclosures and other requirements in connection with a reverse mortgage loan."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 680,909 (62.62%) for - 406,434 (37.37%) against

PROPOSITION 6

"The constitutional amendment providing for the creation of the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas and the State Water Implementation Revenue Fund for Texas to assist in the financing of priority projects in the state water plan to ensure the availability of adequate water resources."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 836,424 (73.37%) for - 303,547 (26.62%) against

PROPOSITION 7

"The constitutional amendment authorizing a home-rule municipality to provide in its charter the procedure to fill a vacancy on its governing body for which the unexpired term is 12 months or less."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 806,764 (74.39%) for - 277,724 (25.60%) against

PROPOSITION 8

"The constitutional amendment repealing Section 7, Article IX, Texas Constitution, which relates to the creation of a hospital district in Hidalgo County."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 740,581 (72.36%) for -282,830 (27.63%) against

PROPOSITION 9

"The constitutional amendment relating to expanding the types of sanctions that may be assessed against a judge or justice following a formal proceeding instituted by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct."

Early totals and all 8,193 precincts: 921,900 (84.65%) for - 167,156 (15.34) against